Wild Kingdom
by Kassidy62
Summary: Starsky/Hutch; set during MOONSHINE, right after Starsky and Hutch leave the bar.


**Wild Kingdom**

alternate scenes for "Moonshine"

by Kassidy

His head rolled over my lap and his face pressed into my stomach and nuzzled in. He snickered, voice muffled from the moonshine and my shirt, and I grinned down at him—just something about that muzzy little laugh of his. I put the car in drive and pulled away fast, a cloud of dust and light rising around and then behind us in the dirt parking lot. The road slipped under the wheels in a gray blur as I sped up.

"Dancin', goin' dancin'," he sang tunelessly into my stomach, and kept singing.

I shook my head—yeah, right. The only fancy steps he'd be taking in the next few hours would involve a fast scramble to the nearest toilet bowl. I mean, yeah, I've seen him dance drunk before, but_ this_—

He squinted up at me. "Hey, I can see up your nose. D'ya know it?"

"Moron." Sometimes it's the only word that'll do. I looked down at the moron in question. My partner's eyes were reddened and half-shut in the bright, hot light of the afternoon and a silly-ass grin decorated his face.

"Looks clean as a whistle from here," he said.

"I'm relieved. I was wondering."

"You were—" he began, his brow wrinkled in a frown that changed like lightning as a big grin spread over his face. "That's funny, Hutch—ha! Good one," and he snickered some more, admiringly, as if I were maybe Steve Martin cat juggling. (Starsk thinks Steve is the future of comedy. I think he's the end of it.) He struggled to get up on an elbow, the upholstery crinkling as he dug in, and somehow his face ended up pushing deeper into my stomach.

"Starsk! Driving, here."

"No, I mean it. You are the funniest guy I know." I nearly didn't understand him this time, his voice was so muffled.

"You're the drunkest guy I know," I said sharply, and turned a corner. His hands clutched at my hips as he tried to keep his body from sliding outward.

His face fell into my crotch. Hard.

I yelled—something along the line of fuck shit kill you my aching balls. It didn't seem to faze him—he just picked his head up and lobbed it back into my stomach. I made another sound, something wordless and high-pitched this time.

"See? Funny." His voice was muffled again in my shirt. I gritted my teeth and kept my hands on the wheel instead of wrapping them around his throat.

_Funny._ Yeah. My balls were killing me and Starsky was lying here on my lap like a beached baby whale, telling me how funny I was; this from the same guy who thinks I'm about as funny as the flu when he's sober. I sighed and tried to relax my shoulders from down around my ears.

I glanced down again. _What the hell was he doing down there?_ _"_Yeah, okay. Now get your nose outta my shirt and your face outta my balls, would you?"

Starsky reared up, brayed laughter and collapsed into my stomach once more, which at least was an improvement over banging his face into my balls again. I made an _oof_ sound which earned me another snigger for my troubles. Then he quieted down.

The next thing I heard was a sniff.

Again. Sniff, sniff. He pulled a huge breath in through my shirt. "Shirt smells good," he said.

I was amazed at his lung capacity. I wondered if it were possible to sprain a lung. Then I realized that was exactly like something Starsky would think about, and I made a face. He pulled in another huge breath and snuffled a little.

I'm not very ticklish, but there was something about him pulling wind from my skin and through my shirt that made me squirm. The snuffle was the capper.

He felt me squirm, and he snickered again and looked up at me, grinning, the devil in his eyes. He dug his nose into my shirt and took another breath in, so hard that I felt it all over my stomach.

Snuffle.

I laughed. My balls contracted. My hips did another squirm and my ass ground into seat. "Cut it out!"

_Snicker, snicker_, came from down below. More wind sucking.

I laughed some more, couldn't help it. Squirmed some more. Starsky haw-hawed against my stomach and pulled at my shirt, got the tail free. He stuck his head in under and blew a raspberry. Or he tried. I figured he was so drunk he couldn't pucker that well. Loose lips.

So he stuck his tongue in my navel instead.

My back arched off the back of the seat in shock. "Get _off_ me!" The car swerved over the road. His hands came up around my waist and his head came out from under my shirt. His hair was wild.

He glared up at me. "Hey, my car! Be careful."

I stared down at him. "You—!"

"Watch the road!"

I looked up and sure enough, I'd drifted over, was riding the edge and about to roll off onto the shoulder. I jerked the wheel to the left, heading for the inside lane.

Another breath in through my shirt. "Shirt smells really good." Starsk gets a little repetitive when he's drinking. "Or maybe that's just you, huh?"

"You're certifiably—"

And then I felt it.

His mouth moved down, moist breath moving against my crotch. My voice climbed a protest up past the dog register into ear-shattering silence, and then I _really_ swerved.

Starsky's head came up again, but this time there was a look in his eyes that made my breath stop. His eyes were dilated, dark pupils swallowing up most of the blue, and his mouth was open, just a little. He smiled, one corner of his mouth coming up briefly, and there was enough sex and the promise of it to knock me off my feet. Except I already _was _off my feet.

"What the fuck?" I asked, and my voice was low, low, low. I cleared my throat. Didn't help—it was stuck somewhere down in a sandpit, dry, husky.

I pushed his head away, suddenly, convulsively, but it swayed right back,

a snake doing a dance. Starsky the Snake.

"You're wasted. Cut it out." I said it loud, but my chest was doing the trip-hammer.

"Remember that time we did Nancy together?"

"I don't make a habit of forgetting women I sleep with," I snapped, and pushed a little harder on the gas petal.

"And after we broke up?"

"What about it?" But I knew what he was talking about.

"The day after she dumped me to get exclusive with the astrolo—astrono—"

"Astrophysicist," I interrupted him, and couldn't help rolling my eyes. "Go figure. From you to an astrophysicist."

"Hey! She was a nice girl. They got married, you know," Starsky added thoughtfully.

I stared down at him. "You're kidding me."

"Would I do that? Watch the road!"

"You're pulling my leg."

"You're a snob, you know that? You slept with her, too, pal."

"So I did. Which proves I am not a snob."

"No, you dated Jeanie. That proves you're not a snob."

"How?"

Starsky smirked. "Well, Jeanie. She had no class. Ye Olde Chestless Wonder."

"She had no class because she had no breasts?"

"Ha! I told you you're funny. 'Cept when you're not. Got nothing to do with it. I just remembered the breast thing is all."

"Sure. It all comes down to the feminine attributes with you, Starsk. You know that?"

"What? She had no boobs, Hutch. No fault of her own, but hey, I got eyes. At least Nance had _boobs_."

"Yeah, in place of brains," I said and smirked down at him.

"Yeah, speaking of brains. You thought you were in love with Ye Olde CW. Kinda says it all, doesn't it?"

I felt my face go hot. "That was a long time ago."

"She give good head?" he asked, and my face flamed hotter. He grinned. Starsky tried to prop an elbow on my leg to hold up his head, but there wasn't enough room. The elbow slid off, perilously close to my balls again. I gave him a warning look, which he ignored.

His eyebrows shot up. "Ahah! You think you're smart. You can't outsmart me, Hutchinson. You're tryin' to distract me."

"You're the one talking about head, dirtball."

"I may be drunk but I know when I'm being distracted . . . say, did you know I out-drank Fat Rolly one time? That ain't easy."

"You what? You got drunk with Fat Rolly? Why in the hell would you—"

"And one time I was loaded and I bowled a 220. Oh, and I did a handstand drunk, once, remember, after you told me you could do 'em, and now—"

"Yeah, I remember. You fell on your face and almost broke your—"

"And now I'm gonna do _you_." He grinned agreeably up at me, but his eyes promised me it was gonna happen.

My mouth fell open. I closed it before something was said about catching flies. I swallowed, apparently the wrong way. "And you nearly threw up, too," I managed to get out, then started coughing. Starsky reared up and slapped me on the shoulder. He put some weight behind it, too.

"Stop hitting me!" I gasped and coughed some more.

"Just tryin' to help." He waited patiently until I stopped and then said, "So back before you tried distractin' me . . . " His forehead puckered and he stared at my stomach. Then his face cleared. "We were talking about that night. After Nance."

"What night?" At that point I'd've talked about just about anything else other than what I thought he'd said to me, but I was pretty sure the thing he was getting ready to talk about was going to lead up to the other. Because I remembered things, too.

"_That _night," he said, looking exasperated. He stared at me hard.

"Yeah." I sighed, giving it up. Persistence is Starsky's middle name. "Okay."

"The night after Nance gave me the heave-ho. A couple of weeks after we had—"

"All right," I said. "I got it, I remember, okay?"

But he, of course, kept on. "You came over, we had a few beers. We were on the couch, watching the game, but I didn't even know who won afterwards. I kept remembering you and me and Nance in bed together. Well, actually, all I kept seeing on that screen was you and her. Okay, mostly you. Your face. The way you looked at her." His voice went deeper, slower. "The way you moved against her, over her—"

"Starsky, shut up." My voice should have frozen hell over, but Starsky was never afraid of me. Even when he should have been.

"The way you fucked her. Your mouth open, eyes closed." Starsky's eyes were half-lidded, dreaming. "I could see it all on your face, Hutch. Everything you were feelin'." His eyes moved to my mouth. "You knew I was thinking about you. You knew I was thinking about you that night we watched the game, too. Didn't you?" And all I could think of was when I looked over and saw the boner outlined in his jeans. I'd stared at him for a minute, and he'd flushed and put a pillow over his lap. Ordinarily, I'd have said something beyond crude in response, but not this time.

Because he was right—I'd known.

"Goddammit, Starsky, I know you're drunk, but _enough_!" But even yelling couldn't distract me from the fact, now that I'd admitted it to myself. And I'd known the night we were in bed with Nancy. He'd looked at me like a lion does an antelope on _Wild Kingdom._ Focused, sharp. Hungry. It'd made me even hotter. I banged her into the mattress until sweat was streaming down my body and I was lost in it, in her whispered pleas, her heat and wetness.

In Starsky's eyes, anchoring me.

"It's not enough. Not nearly," he said, his voice hoarse, and his fingers fumbled over my zipper. I reached down and grabbed his hand in my own.

"Stop. Okay?" I said it soft. My fingers curled around his. I stared down at him, glanced up at the road, back down. Asking him with everything I had.

_Let it go._

His eyes never wavered from mine. "No." He kept staring at me, his eyes sharp and clear, as if a cool breeze had blown in and cleared the moonshine out of his system. I watched him, barely remembering to check the road, driving slower and slower.

Marlin Perkins would've been fascinated by Starsk on the prowl. The guy is mesmerizing.

I let go of his hand and he moved it away, but then he reached behind him without looking, his palm curling around my knee and rubbing gently. His hand moved up, cupped my leg up inside my thigh.

_What the hell is happening here?_ But my body knew, and something that moved around in back of my mind where I couldn't get to it or didn't want to, yet.

His hand moved to my crotch. I grunted at that first touch, moving in tight, hard strokes against my hard-on. And I _was _hard, straining against the zipper of my jeans, hard enough to hurt. I opened my mouth to yell at him, reached a hand down to shove him away, and instead spread my left leg open wide and my right one as far as I could and still keep my foot on the gas. Starsky grasped the zipper of my jeans and pulled.

There wasn't enough oxygen in the Torino. My chest heaved, trying to suck in more air. Nothing seemed real, not even when Starsky pulled the flaps of my jeans open as wide as he could and yanked my underwear down to get at me. I cursed but I didn't pull away. I looked down at his curly mop of hair, shot through with warm brown and red highlights, and then I felt heat and suction lower around my cock, surrounding, tightening. Reality crashed over me like a brick to the head—it was _Starsky_, oh God, his mouth, his tongue licking and wrapping around me, so wet, so sweet, so insane, but too late, way too late to stop. I didn't want him to.

His mouth slid up and down, clumsy, determined, devouring, and I went out of my fucking mind, arching into his mouth, jerking my leg hard against the car door and moaning, the helpless sound of it astonishing even me.

A green Buick on the opposite side of the road honked frantically as the Torino jerked to the left, heading towards it. I saw the driver's mouth open in a terrified O as I swerved closer. I swung the wheel and Starsky's mouth left me. He looked up at me a second, making sure everything was under control, then sank back down. I groaned again, deep, looking blindly out the windshield, trying desperately to remember that we were going to crash with my dick in Starsky's mouth if I didn't take care of business first.

But _God._ His mouth was all over me.

I wanted to thrust so badly, harder, fuck him, drive myself into him, but if I gave in to it the way I wanted I'd lose whatever control I still had left. I uncurled my fingers from around the steering wheel and pounded it with the palms of my hands, and oh _shit_, he sucked harder, deeper. I wrapped my fingers back around the wheel. They were shaking; I was shaking like an earthquake, couldn't think past the need to push myself into him, something strangled and as wild as any of the sounds Marlin's safari pals ever made coming out of my mouth. I gritted my teeth, banging my left foot on the floorboard in frustration. God I wanted to come.

His head bobbed up and down, tongue stroking, rubbing. His mouth was scorching. I heard the sounds he made sucking me, loud in car. He groaned and it vibrated against my cock.

I couldn't hold back anymore and thrust deep into his throat, yelling. I squeezed my eyes shut, just for a second, colors exploding behind my lids. My cock jumped so hard it hurt. I opened my eyes, made myself do it, fast, looked out at the road, looked down as Starsky pulled his mouth off and jerked me strongly with his fist. I pushed harder against the floorboard and pressed my back into the seat, trying to keep from bowing out away from it, pulsing hard, coming harder. Colored spots appeared before my eyes. Semen jerked out of me and into the air, back down, landing on Starsky's fist. It felt like it'd never end.

He reached a thumb up, touched and rubbed it, the act of it absorbing all his attention. His lips were red and swollen. He looked awfully satisfied, though I was sure his dick had to be drilling a hole through his jeans.

I wanted to watch the cords stand out in his neck, watch his dick pulse wanting my mouth around him, wanted him to stare blindly and not see anything, only _feel. _I wanted to make him come so hard he couldn't remember his fucking name, wanted him to want it the way I had wanted it. It scared me shitless.

_Oh Marlin, help me. _

And then I looked up.

A bus rode along beside us, looming over the Torino. The _Bay Area Transit Service, _serving Bay City citizen's transportation needs.

My foot jittered on the gas pedal and the bus pulled slowly ahead, a row of people sweeping past, looking down from the windows, mouths open, more gaping O's.

I think one of them screamed.

A woman with brown hair blowing around her wide, pretty face grinned down at us. Then she winked.

My face flooded with heat and I tried shoving my thighs together, but they only trembled. "Starsk," I said, my voice sounding shaky, frantic. I dropped a hand away from the steering wheel and shoved at his head.

He responded by sucking me back in. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it's possible I—oh hell, I wailed, all right?

It didn't faze the crazy hedonist in the slightest, because he just flicked me with his tongue. I yelped and twisted away, squirming again, this time because my cock was so sensitive. I heard him laugh.

_Shit._

"Starsk," I said, settling my ass back down on the seat. "Look_ up_." He wouldn't. "Would you just look?" I pleaded.

His mouth slipped off me and his face turned to the side, settling against my opened zipper. It had to be uncomfortable, but he looked like he liked it there.

"_Starsky!_" He must have heard the panic in my voice because finally, finally he squirmed over onto his back, and just like I figured, he sported a hard-on that threatened to shred his jeans. I couldn't help but notice. Hell, you could tell the guy's religion.

Starsky looked up. He did a double-take, then levered himself up to grin at the woman, who by now was leaning out the window and waving as the bus left us behind. He waved back.

Then he dropped his head on my stomach, laughing his ass off.

I shoved him off my lap with both hands—the car swerving wildly yet again—and he was still laughing while I zipped and buttoned, my legs trembling like a virgin bride on her wedding night.

"You taste good."

What the hell's a guy supposed to say to that? My face went hot again. I didn't say a word.

"When you gonna go dancin' with me, schweetheart?"

"Shut up!" I glared at him.

"I got the shoes right here." He was still snickering like a horse's ass. He laughed until I wanted to shove my dick in his mouth again just to shut him up (yeah, sure, _that's_ why I wanted to do it).

I got him coffee instead. Lots of it.

Then lo and behold, we ran across a yellow pickup just like Rudy at the Smokey Mountain Inn had described to us. We took off after it. Lost the truck and Starsky lost his lunch (not that it was unexpected, considering). And though I could have gotten a little sensitive about the fact that he felt the need to puke after giving me head, I knew better.

He'd liked it. A lot.

Dobey was on the radio, and I did my best to listen to him instead of listening to Starsky barf. And after that, we went after the bad guys.

Starsky coasted the Torino to a slow stop in front of Venice Place. It was dark.

Willy and Melvin, the two brothers who'd sold moonshine mixed with enough wood alcohol in it to kill, were safe in prison. The good guys win again, right? Only I wasn't feeling much like a good guy, lately.

Both of us were wiped out. His ankle hurt him, I could tell, but he refused to go to the doctor—said he'd go in the morning. He looked at me and I saw how the tiredness settled deep inside him. I looked out the car window, listened to the night sounds, smelled the exhaust.

His voice was hesitant. "Listen. Hutch? About what happened—"

It was the first time he'd tried to broach the subject, and that's as far as I let it go, because in my mind I saw his face just as it had been, his lips puffy, vulnerable, eyes soft. I remembered—no, more than remembered, _felt_–what I'd wanted.

I wanted to see him come. Needed it like an ache in the gut, like a hit when you need a high.

I couldn't face it.

"Do you know what you've done to us, Starsk?" I actually opened up my mouth and said it. His face went white as paper. I saw it even in the dimness of the car. He looked like he'd aged ten years.

Suddenly I was the one who wanted to throw up. I reached out a hand for him. Dropped it, looked at it, there on my lap. Hated it.

I opened the car door and took the stairs fast like the coward I was.

I couldn't leave it like that. Even I'm not that big of an asshole.

At the apartment I brooded a while. I tried watching TV. Tried not to see what Starsky's face looked like in the car after I'd opened my big mouth, failing pretty handily. He was all I _could_ see.

Then I tried to get a handle on what had messed with my head so badly, and after awhile I even came to terms with the fact that it _wasn't_ that Starsky had sucked me off. Okay, well it was that, but it was also that I'd let it happen. And it was that I'd let it happen in his car in broad daylight. And that it was Starsky, my partner. My _male _partner.

And then I had to think on why Starsky would want me that way—why I hadn't known it before. And why hadn't I known that I'd like to do the same thing to _him_? Just thinking about it gave me another hard-on.

It was a lot to take in on short notice. Too much.

Maybe I should have seen the signs before now—I'm a free thinker, but this is whole _lot_ of free we're talking about. But I have one truth when it comes to Starsky. I might fight against it, question it, make things more than difficult because sometimes I don't want to know it or even sometimes can't deal with it anymore—the pressure, the expectations he has of me, of who he thinks I am—but stillit has hold of me and won't let me go. Starsky is my best friend, my partner, my first class pain in the ass irritant, my sometimes caretaker (whether I like it or not), and on more times than a few . . . my savior.

And I don't want to be without him. Ever. Even when sometimes I very seriously _do_ want to be without him.

And when I had that straight in my head, enough to hope that maybe I'd let it stay there and not turn away from it as I'd been doing lately, I got in the car and drove back to his apartment.

He was drunk again. I couldn't believe it. As soon as he opened up the door I smelled it. Legal booze, this time—I saw the mostly empty bottle of whisky still open on the table.

I walked in and dammit, I couldn't find the guts to say what was on my mind. Worse than that—I tightened up, waiting for him to say something, make a move, as if he needed to apologize and not me. As if I hadn't been the one being a jerk earlier.

I'm my own worst enemy. Someday I'm gonna pull a stunt like this and it'll be more than Starsky can handle.

God, I hope not.

So there he was, drunk again. Who knew how many brain cells he'd fried. He sat there on the couch, staring down at his lap. No TV, no music, nothing. A breeze came in through an open window. It would have felt good but for the thousand pound dead weight in my chest. I watched him and it was like watching somebody bleed out. I started to panic. I wanted to apologize, make it better, tell him the truth, that I was just fucking scared, but it was like my mouth was welded shut.

I made myself open it and listened to what fell out, hoping it'd be the right thing. Should have known better.

I asked him why he was sitting in the dark. That's it, the sum total. My voice came out gruff, brusque. He raised his head and looked at me and in that one moment, I knew how truly worthless I could be.

Everybody, one more time, sing it with me: _Hutch fucked up, again, again and again, forever and amen._

Maybe I just wasn't going to be able to handle this. Maybe I couldn't.

So I told him I was leaving again. He didn't say a word. I got up and stood there at the doorway, my hand on the knob, the dark swallowing me up. He didn't move. I walked down the stairs and got in the car. I started the engine and drove away down the block. The further I got the bigger the weight in my chest became.

Another block.

_Can't you just tell him the truth? _

Another block.

_Tell him you wanted what he did. Shit, tell him _something—_tell him you don't know what to tell him. Just stop running!_

I turned back, doing a U-turn. The car rolled over a good three yards of sidewalk before I got her back on the road. The weight in my chest jostled with the car, sinking down to my toes and taking all remaining oxygen with it. I tried to find some, breathing hard. My hands shook like I had palsy.

I couldn't see the road anymore. All I could see was his face that afternoon in the goddamned car. I stepped on the gas.

And there he was, on the sidewalk. I'd recognize that curly head and those cruddy jeans anywhere. The streetlight put white highlights in his hair. He was in the grass, then back onto the sidewalk again, wandering unsteadily. He favored his left foot. I pulled up beside him, flung open the door and jumped out. He didn't look up.

He had a sock on the hurt foot, but no shoe. On the other foot he had a shoe but no sock. I laughed, a panicky edge to it because the weight in my chest was more than I could handle anymore.

He jerked a little at the sound, as if he'd just realized I was there.

"Where you going?" I asked. My voice rasped.

He looked up at me. His face was solemn. "After you," he said, and the weight in my chest was suddenly such a big shitty unsupportable ache that I bent over from it, hand bracing on my knee, and still I couldn't get away from knowing what a bastard I could be and would be.

His hand came down on my back and rubbed. "Don't, don't," he whispered, and leaned his warmth into me. "It's okay, Hutch. I promise it is," and it hurt, but still something in me wouldn't let go. Hadn't let go in a long, long time, not since Gillian. I think if I had, right there and then on the sidewalk, things might have been different. Kira wouldn't have happened, for one thing.

But I didn't. I did the next best thing and wrapped my arms around him. "I'm not," I whispered back. "Not okay." I took a deep breath. "I . . . couldn't tell you. I want to tell you."

"Out here on the sidewalk?" he asked, squinting at me.

I sighed. "I, uh . . . liked what you did. To me."

He laughed. "Y'think I need you to tell me that?"

"Starsky, shut up. I want to go back to the apartment. I want to make you come so hard you go blind."

The smile that had been growing died off his face. His eyes glowed under the streetlights. I swear his pupils grew twice in size. He licked his lips. "Blind, huh?"

"Yeah," I managed, though my throat felt paralyzed. So I kissed him, right there on the street.

God. You could get drunk off the fumes. I backed up, pulling him with me to the car. He almost fell in on me, so I pulled him in all the way. His body covered mine and he kissed my face and my eyes and neck like he couldn't stop if he tried.

"Don't you walk out on me again. I can't watch your back when you're walking away, you hear me?" He slapped my cheek lightly.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. "You're drunk."

He had his lion-eyes fixed on me again. "Doesn't matter if I'm drunk or not. It was going to happen and I should have known I'd have to be the one to do it. Better than waiting for you to make a move, that's for sure." He grabbed my crotch and rubbed and I groaned loudly. "My kinda date. You're easy," he said, satisfaction in his voice. I groaned again in agreement, arching against him. "What is it about you and cars?" he asked. "Aren't you capable of making it with me indoors or something?"

"I'm willing to give it a try," I said, struggling to sit up. I was in a fog. I opened the door.

"Hey." His voice was patient.

"Yeah?" I asked. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to smooth it, and scrubbed my face.

"We're not exactly at the apartment yet. You pulled over to pick me up, remember?"

Who was drunk here anyway?

"Oh," I said, looking out and up the street at his place. I closed the car door. "You didn't make it very far," I observed. "Why'd you come after me on foot?"

"Couldn't find my keys."

I shook my head, disgusted. "They're in your pocket. Not that you should be driving."

He felt in his pocket and looked up, surprised. "How'd you know?"

"Felt 'em just now when you were busy drilling your dick in my stomach. Thought you were trying to give me an appendectomy." He narrowed his eyes at me. I turned the keys in the ignition and he grimaced at the choppy sounds the car made as it started. I gunned it and he looked around, embarrassed.

Yeah, I kissed him on the sidewalk (granted, it was dark) and he didn't say a word. My car, though, that embarrassed him.

He put a hand on the door handle as I pulled up to the apartment. "C'mon in. Only, no fucking."

I stared at him. His face was dead earnest.

"We're gonna talk. No fucking. This isn't something that's gonna go away tomorrow. I want to be sure you know that. I can't stand all this drama. Jeez, you're awfully skittish, Hutch."

"No fucking?" I couldn't get past it. I went through all this soul-searching and personal hell for . . . for _not _fucking?

"In the morning. When I'm not drunk. I'll have you singin' hymns," he promised, and I raised a questioning eyebrow. "Praising me." I rolled my eyes and got out of the car.

Inside, I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge (he didn't need more to drink, but I sure as hell did) and walked back to the living room. I sat on the opposite end of the couch and looked at him. I stretched over gingerly and gave him his beer. I made sure my fingers didn't touch his. He hadn't turned on any lights, so we sat there in the dark. Again.

"Thanks." He leaned back to take a sip and some of it poured down his shirt. I could tell by the way he jumped when the cold beer ran down his chest.

I eyed him but suppressed any commentary. "You're welcome," was all I said. I swallowed a long drink of beer.

He did the same, managing to get it in his mouth this time.

I swallowed some more.

He did, too.

I put the beer down on the coffee table and looked at him.

He did, too.

We met in a flying tackle in the middle of the sofa. It creaked loudly in protest. His head banged on my chin. My elbow nearly gutted him. It was a wonder we didn't break bones or anything else.

"No fucking?" I gasped.

"None," he said, and plunged his tongue about a foot inside my mouth. I sucked on it. We rolled off the couch and crashed to the floor. He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled. Buttons fired off all over the room. He wrapped around me so hard I couldn't breathe.

"Good thing you're a man of your word, Starsk," I gasped out.

"Sssh," he said in my ear. "Think of a hymn and be ready."

"Uh-uh. You're going blind, boy," I said. I was on a mission. I grabbed the bottom of his shirt and yanked it up over his head.

I heard him snicker beneath the shirt. "You sound like Charlie McCabe," he said. "And you're cheating. You can't use a shirt. You gotta make me _come _until I go blind. You know, like I did you in the car. You didn't even see that bus until it was on top of us."

"Just shut up while I don't fuck you," I growled.

And I held him down and kissed him, tasted him, and he groaned and thrust up into me as if his tongue was a cock and he could fuck me with it, and I pushed his head hard into the floor and kissed him deeper. I ran my tongue down into the hollow of his throat, tasting salt, tasting Starsky, then licked through the hair on his chest, flicking his nipples, sucking and chewing on them, then on his navel. I banged his wrists back down on the floor when he reached for me. I touched and licked and rubbed him until he was writhing beneath me, roaring up at the ceiling one moment and begging me to fuck him with my mouth and hands and assorted parts the next, until he was shaking and blind and calling out my name as if I were the only person alive for him.

And _that _was only the first time. I wrung him out and then he did me and then I did it to him again.

There'll never be a last time, not for us. Not if I can help it.

Afterwards, he wrapped himself around me again, chest pressed against mine, nose buried in my neck. He sighed and muttered something about me being Kryptonite to his Superman, but then he squeezed me tight, arms and legs like ropes, and it felt like he had plenty of strength left.

"You okay?" I grunted after a minute—it was hard to talk with him squeezing so hard. Plus I was weak as an overcooked noodle.

He nodded his head against my neck and wrapped even tighter around me.

"Starsky? I've got my hymn all ready and you're punking out on me?"

That did it. He pulled away from my neck enough to glare at me, and damned if _Wild Kingdom_ didn't flash through my head again—only this time it was Marlin in South America, wrestling an anaconda in the water. I remembered watching it, thinking that someone (or two or three someones) needed to put down their cameras and help the morons—hell, at one point the snake had wrapped itself all around Stan Brock's face for God's sake. Marlin helped Stan get the snake off him, but then the monster wound himself around Marlin's thrashing body. Things looked grim for old Marlin for a few minutes before Stan managed to return the favor and free him.

That anaconda was at least two hundred pounds, more than Starsky weighed. Unlike the snake, it appeared that Starsky was gonna win this round—he'd trapped me beneath him but good.

I, however, still had a hymn to sing.

I gasped out, "You're choking me," which was pretty much a lie, but it got him to let me go. I gave him a quick once-over. His face was open, transparent as glass, and I knew he didn't want me examining that. Not yet.

So I stood up, naked, cleared my throat and sang a personalized adaptation of _O Come, O Come, Emmanuel _in tribute.

Starsky's face turned ten shades of scarlet. He laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks and then wheezed that God was gonna strike me down for what I had just done.

Which was funny, because for the first time in a long, long time I was sure I'd finally done something right.


End file.
